Hell's Gate

Chapter Fourteen

Jasak Olderhan reminded himself not to curse out loud as he shaded his eyes with one hand, peering up at the approaching dragon.

Muthok Salmeer had made the condition of Cloudsail, Windclaw's assigned wing dragon, abundantly clear. It would be weeks, at least, before Cloudsail could return to service, which hadn't exactly filled Jasak with happiness when he found out. The distance between the base camp and Fort Rycharn was just long enough to prevent a single dragon from flying a complete round-trip without pausing for rest. With only Windclaw, that was going to limit him to at most one and a half round-trips per day, which was going to put a decided kink into his plan to pull back to the coastal enclave by air.

Under the circumstances, the sight of a second operable dragon should have delighted him. Unfortunately, since it couldn't be the injured Cloudsail, it had to be one of the additional dragons they'd been promised for months. Given the water gap between Fort Rycharn and Fort Wyvern, at the entry portal into this universe, it could only have arrived by ship. Which meant the next regularly scheduled transport from Fort Wyvern had also arrived.

Which almost certainly meant …

The dragon landed, and Jasak's mouth tightened as a stocky man in the uniform of the Second Andaran Scouts with the same silver-shield collar insignia Jasak wore climbed down from the second saddle. The newcomer turned, surveying the camp and the rows of wounded troopers with a hard, grim frown, and Jasak snarled a mental obscenity.

He had been looking forward to his replacement's arrival, or, at least, to going home himself for a well-earned bit of R amp;R. But that had changed the moment Shevan Garlath sent the situation crashing out of control by killing an unarmed man. His men were shattered and demoralized, and the thought of turning his command over now was thoroughly unpalatable.

"Hundred Thalmayr." Jasak saluted the newcomer.

"Hundred Olderhan." Hadrign Thalmayr returned Jasak's salute with a flip of the hand which which turned the ostensible courtesy into something one thin inch short of a derisive insult. Then he reached into his tunic pocket and extracted an official message crystal. "As per the orders of Commander of Two Thousand mul Gurthak, I relieve you."

Jasak's jaw muscles knotted as he saw the contempt in Thalmayr's dark eyes. The man knew nothing about what had happened out here, but it was obvious he'd already made up his mind about it. Jasak's temper snarled against its leash, but he couldn't afford to release it. Not yet.

"Very well, Hundred Thalmayr," he said formally, instead, accepting the crystal. "I stand relieved."

"Good," Thalmayr said. "In that case, pack your prisoners onto your transport, Hundred Olderhan. There's nothing to delay your immediate departure.

"On the contrary," Jasak said, more sharply than he'd intended to do. "I have men in the field, on a reconnaissance mission. They haven't returned yet, and we can't possibly evacuate until they do."

"Evacuate?" Thalmayr repeated incredulously. He stared at Jasak for an instant, then curled his lip contemptuously. "You can't possibly be serious!"

"I'm deadly serious," Jasak snapped. "These people have devastating weapons we can't even comprehend, Thalmayr. Less than twenty of them?apparently civilians?killed or wounded two thirds of a crack Scout unit. That's over eighty-five percent casualties to First Platoon's combat element. Until we know more about them, the last thing we can afford is another armed confrontation. We need to make that impossible?pull back to the coast and establish a buffer zone they can't track us across until we get a team of trained diplomats in here."

"We wouldn't need diplomats," Thalmayr said icily, "if you hadn't totally botched the first contact! I may not have been an Andaran Scout?" a not-so-faint edge of contempt burred in the last two words "?as long as you have, but even a straight infantry puke knows standing orders are clear, Olderhan. In the event of discovery of any non-Arcanan people, every precaution must be taken to insure peaceful contact." He swept an angry gesture across the wounded waiting for medical treatment. "Obviously, your idea of 'peaceful' isn't exactly the same as mine, is it?"

Muscles jumped along Jasak Olderhan's jaw. He could hardly tell this pompous oaf that Fifty Garlath had been ordered to stand down. It would have sounded like a lame excuse, and the last thing he was prepared to do was sound as if he were making excuses to Hadrign Thalmayr. Eventually, there would be a board of inquiry. The odds were at least even that the board's conclusions would send his career into the nearest toilet, whatever else happened, but at the moment?

"That doesn't change the current tactical situation," he said instead. He made his voice come out levelly, as non-confrontationally as possible, but Thalmayr's eyes blazed.

"Yes," he bit out, "it does. You may want to cut and run, but your actions have made it imperative?imperative!?that we remain firmly in control of this portal. First, because the Union Army will never yield an inch of Arcanan soil. Second, because it's the smallest bottleneck in three universes, which makes it the best possible spot to hold our ground if we have to. And third, because your own initial report to Five Hundred Klian makes it clear that the universe on the other side of that portal?" he jabbed an angry gesture at the swamp portal "?is a fucking cluster. Only the second true cluster ever discovered! We are not going to give up access to a cluster the size of this one. Especially not when somebody's already been stupid enough to start a fucking war with the people we'd be giving it up to!"

Jasak knew his face had gone white, and Thalmayr sneered at him.

"We'll get your 'diplomats' in here, all right, Olderhan. They'll shovel the shit and clean up your mess for you. But in the meantime, if the bastards who did this?" the same angry hand jabbed at the rows of wounded "?want to pick a fight, they'll get no further than that slice of dirt." The finger jabbed again, this time at the portal. "If they want Arcanan soil, we'll give them just enough of it to bury them in."

Jasak stared at him, too aghast even to feel his own white-hot rage.

"Are you out of your mind?" he demanded. "If you invoke Andaran 'blood and honor' now, you'll have a first-class disaster on your hands! And you'll get more of my men killed, you?"

"My men!" Thalmayr snarled back. "Or have you forgotten the orders in that crystal?"

Jasak started a fiery retort, then made himself stop. He sucked in an enormous breath, promising himself the day would come when Hadrign Thalmayr would face him?briefly?across a field of honor. But not today. Not here.

"Yours or mine, Hundred Thalmayr," he said as calmly as he could, "it's unconscionable to put these men back into the path of combat again when there's no need, and when another violent confrontation would be the worst political disaster we could come up with. Sitting here rattling our sabers and daring the enemy to cross our line in the mud isn't the way to resolve this situation without further bloodshed."

"Contact's already been botched." Thalmayr's eyes were volcanic. "Thanks to that?thanks to you?these people now represent a clear and present danger to the Union of Arcana. My job is to safeguard Arcanan territory?"

"Your job is to defend Arcanan citizens from further danger," Jasak hissed, "not to haggle over the ownership of a patch of mud!"

"?and I'll rattle as many sabers as it fucking well takes to defend it!" Thalmayr snarled, as if Jasak hadn't spoken at all. "Your job?assuming you can do it?is to transport your passengers back for interrogation. I suggest you get started. It's a long, long way to Army HQ on New Arcana."

Before Jasak could open his mouth again, Thalmayr shoved past him and strode directly toward the campfire, where Jathmar and Shaylar had risen to their feet and stood watching the heated exchange tautly. Jasak stalked after the idiot, shoulders set for another confrontation. He got it when Thalmayr reached the campfire and turned with another snarl.

"They aren't restrained!"

"No," Jasak said icily. "They aren't. And they won't be."

"You're out of line, Soldier! Those criminals?" the finger he was so fond of jabbing with jerked at Jathmar and his wife "?have slaughtered Arcanan soldiers?"

"Who butchered their civilian companions!" Jasak discovered that he suddenly didn't much care how Thalmayr responded to the flaming contempt in his own voice. The man might be technically senior to him, but he was also a complete and total idiot. A part of Jasak actually hoped he could goad Thalmayr into taking a swing at him. His own career was already so far into the crapper that the charge of striking a superior?especially if the superior had struck the first blow?could hardly do a lot more damage. And the resultant chaos would probably force Five Hundred Klian to put someone?anyone?else in command of Charlie Company while he sorted it out.

"Soldiers who slaughtered their civilian friends in a battle Shevan Garlath started against direct orders!" he continued, glaring murderously at the other officer. "We're in the wrong, Hundred?not them! All they did was defend themselves with courage and honor. That girl?" it was his turn to point at Shaylar "?that civilian girl?is braver than any soldier I've ever commanded! Her husband was so badly burned by our dragons he was barely alive, she was badly injured herself, and she was all alone in the face of the men who'd killed all of her friends, but she faced us with courage. With courage, damn your eyes! She even managed to hold herself together during field rites for every friend she had in that universe. Don't you dare call these people criminals!"

Hundred Thalmayr paled. Field rites were enough to give even hardened soldiers nightmares. But then the color flooded back into his face, which went brick-red with fury.

"I'll call these bastards whatever I fucking well want, Hundred," he said in a voice of ice and fire. "And I am in command here now, not you! You, Sword!" he barked to Sword Harnak. "I want field manacles on these … people. Now, Sword!"

"Stand fast, Sword Harnak!" Jasak snapped. Thalmayr whipped back around to him with an utterly incredulous expression. Jasak matched him glare for glare, and the other hundred leaned towards him.

"I don't give a good godsdamn whose son you are, Olderhan," Thalmayr hissed. "You give another order to one of my men, and I'll send you back to Fort Rycharn in chains to face charges for mutiny in the face of the enemy!"

"Try it," Jasak said very, very quietly. "'These people,' as you put it, are my prisoners, not yours."

"They?" Thalmayr began.

"Shut your brainless mouth," Jasak said coldly. "I was in command of the unit which took them prisoner. The unit which disobeyed my orders and opened fire on a civilian survey party whose leader was standing there without a weapon in his hands trying his best to make peaceful contact despite the previous death of one of his people at our hands. We … were … in … the … wrong," he spaced the words out with deadly precision, "and I was in command, and they surrendered themselves to me honorably." He locked his gaze with Thalmayr's, his expression harder than steel. "'These people' are shardonai, Hundred Thalmayr. My shardonai."

Thalmayr had opened his mouth once again. Now he closed it, glaring back at Jasak. The term "shardon" came from Old Andaran. Literally, it meant "shieldling," and it indicated an individual under the personal protection of an Andaran warrior and his house. It was a concept which stemmed from almost two thousand years of Andaran history. There could be many reasons for the relationship, but one of the oldest?and most sacred, under the Andaran honor code?was the acknowledgment of responsibility for dishonorable or illegal actions by troops under a warrior's command.

"I don't care what else they may be," Thalmayr said after a moment. A corner of his mind knew he ought to drop it, but he was too furious. "They're also enemies of the Union who have killed Army personnel, and as long as they're on a post I command, they will be properly manacled and restrained!"

"Try it," Jasak repeated, and this time it came out almost in a croon. "Please try it. Violate my shardon obligation, and you'll be dead on the ground before you finish the order."

Thalmayr blanched, his face suddenly bone-white as he saw the absolute sincerity in Jasak's blazing eyes. Like Jasak, Thalmayr carried his short sword at his hip, but the restraining strap was firmly buttoned across the quillons, and he very carefully kept his hand well away from it as he backed up two involuntary steps.

Silence hovered between them, colder than ice and just as brittle. Then, finally, Thalmayr straightened his spine and scowled.

"You may be certain, Hundred Olderhan, that I'll be filing charges for insubordination and threatening a superior officer."

"File and be damned," Jasak said, still in that soft, deadly tone.

"And," Thalmayr continued, trying to ignore Jasak's response, "I'll also be lodging a formal protest over your handling of these people. Shardonai or not, enemy prisoners should be restrained to prevent escape attempts."

Jason looked at him disbelieving way, then barked a harsh laugh.

"Escape?" he repeated. "And just where would they go, Hundred? They're in the middle of a heavily guarded camp seven hundred miles from the nearest coastline. Unless I miss my guess, Shaylar's suffering from a concussion, they have no idea how far they are from the portal they came through, and the gods alone know how many miles beyond that portal they'd have to go to find help! With Shaylar too badly injured to travel far, no weapons, and no supplies, they can't run. Not together?and Jathmar won't abandon her."

"You sound awfully godsdamned sure of yourself for someone who's fucked up every single command decision for the past two days by the numbers!" Thalmayr snarled.

"Because he's right," another voice said, and Thalmayr's head snapped around as Gadrial Kelbryan stepped unexpectedly into the fray. He stared at her for a moment, and she looked back with an expression which reminded Jasak of a gryphon defending her chicks. Thalmayr started to glare back, then turned an even darker shade of red as he suddenly realized what sort of language he'd been using in her presence.

"Magister Kelbryan," Jasak said formally, "May I present Commander of One Hundred Hadrign Thalmayr. Hundred Thalmayr, Magister Gadrial Kelbryan, Director of Theoretical Research for the Garth Showma Institute, and special assistant to Magister Halathyn vos Dulainah."

"Hundred." Gadrial nodded, her voice cool, and Thalmayr actually clicked his boot heels as he swept her an elaborate bow. As his head dipped low, Gadrial looked across him at Jasak and rolled her eyes, then wiped the look away, replacing it with a cool, composed gaze as Thalmayr came back upright.

"I apologize for my language, Magister," Thalmayr said almost obsequiously. Obviously, he knew exactly who Gadrial was … and recognized just how fatal to his career it would be to make a mortal enemy out of the second ranking member of the Garth Showma Institute's faculty. Although she wasn't officially in the military, Gadrial carried the equivalent grade of a commander of ten thousand in the UTTTA's civil service.

"I've heard soldiers talking to each other before, Hundred," she said, after a moment, and his shoulders seemed to relax just a bit. "If seldom quite so … freely," she added in that same cool voice with perfect timing, and his shoulders tightened back up instantly.

"Ah, yes," he replied, then stood there for a moment, as if trying to think of something else to say. "Ah, you were saying, Magister?" he continued finally.

"I was saying that Sir Jasak," she said, eyes glittering as she stressed Jasak's title ever so slightly, "is quite right in his assessment of our unexpected guests. And of our obligations to then."

Thalmayr's eyebrows climbed, and Jasak wondered just how much Gadrial actually knew about the shardon relationship. He was willing to bet she didn't begin to understand all of the deep-seated obligations of personal and familial honor bound up in it?she was simply too Ransaran to grasp the implications of Andara's feudal past. Obviously Thalmayr was thinking exactly the same thing, but whatever Jasak's opinion of the other man's basic intelligence?or lack thereof?he was at least smart enough not to pursue that particular basilisk.

"How so, Magister?" he asked courteously, instead.

"I've spent a great deal of time with Shaylar and Jathmar since their capture," Gadrial replied. "He's utterly devoted to her, as she is to him. Think for a moment, Hundred, how you'd feel if you were hundreds of miles from help and?"

"They may not be that far from their portal. It's my understanding that the cluster of portals you and Magister Halathyn have detected are in very close proximity. That means?"

"How dare you interrupt a Guild magister?"

Gadrial's voice cracked like a whip. She bristled so furiously her very hair seemed to crackle and Thalmayr blanched and backed up?first one step, then another?as she advanced on him.

"Are you truly the unschooled, illiterate, brainless, unwashed barbarian you appear to be?" Her voice was like a sword. "Or does the Andaran military academy include courses on discourtesy as part of its standard curriculum? Because if it does, you obviously excelled in at least one subject!"

"Magister, I?"

"Enough!" The air sizzled around her?literally sizzled as static charges cracked and popped like the aura of a Mythalan firebird. "I'm tired of musclebound idiots insulting my intelligence, my professional competence, and my rank! Shevan Garlath was a disgrace to the uniform he died in, and so far, Hundred Thalmayr, I'm not any more favorably impressed by you!"

Hadrign Thalmayr swallowed hard. For a moment, Jasak almost felt sorry for the other man, despite his own blinding rage. The wrath of any full magister was something few mortals cared to incur; the wrath of this magister could destroy the career of a man with far better political and patronage connections than Thalmayr possessed.

"Magister Kelbryan, a thousand pardons! I beg your forgiveness for my deplorable discourtesy."

She tilted her head back, staring down her nose at him despite the fact that he stood two full hands taller than she did. She let him sweat for another long moment, then gave a minute, frost-rimmed nod.

"Apology accepted," she said coldly. Then added, "As for your objection, we know how relatively close we are to their portal; they don't."

Thalmayr started to protest again, then clamped his lips together and kept whatever it was carefully behind his teeth.

"Much better, Hundred Thalmayr." Gadrial's eyes glinted. "They don't know for the simple reason that they were both unconscious for most of the flight here. They have no way of knowing how far we brought them by dragon."

"Oh. Oh, I see." Thalmayr cleared his throat. "Well, yes. That does change the picture a bit, doesn't it?"

Jasak carefully refrained from snorting aloud.

"It certainly does," Gadrial agreed coldly. "Not only do they have no idea how far they'd have to go, but Shaylar can't bolt, and Sir Jasak is right?Jathmar won't, not without her. Look at them, Hundred Thalmayr. I mean that literally. Look at them."

Thalmayr's head turned like a marionette's. Jathmar had placed himself squarely between the hundred and Shaylar. His eyes were slitted, his posture tense. He stood with his knees slightly bent, his hands half-fisted at his sides, coiled like a serpent ready to strike.

"He's already close to the breakpoint," Gadrial said in a quieter, softer voice. "Do you really want to push him over the edge and set off of violent confrontation that might well end in another death, Hundred? And do you think your superiors will thank you for managing to kill off one of the only two sources of information we currently possess just to restrain a man who isn't going to run away anyway?"

Hundred Thalmayr cleared his throat again.

"You … may just have a point, Magister."

"How magnanimous of you to agree, Hundred."

He flushed under the ice-cold irony of her voice. For just an instant Jasak thought he might actually take up her verbal gage, but apparently even he wasn't that stupid.

"Very well," he muttered instead, his voice brittle. "I'll concede the point."

"Thank you. My job is hard enough as it is, without fighting the Army every step of the way."

"Your job, Magister?"

"Yes, my job. Isn't it obvious?" she asked, deliberately needling him. But he only blinked, clearly not seeing where she was headed.

"I'm the only non-soldier in this camp," she said in a deliberately patient voice. "The only person they're likely to even halfway trust. I've also seen virtually everything that happened out here. What I know, what I've already seen and done, make my inclusion in whatever happens to them imperative."

"That's the official position of the Guild?" he asked, knowing full well that the Guild didn't know anything about this situation as yet. Gadrial knew it, too, but she looked him squarely in the eye.

"It is," she said flatly, and it would be, as soon as the news broke. She'd see to that personally, if she had to. Meanwhile, the closer she stayed to them, the less likely it was that anyone in the Army?or in the halls of political power, for that matter?would be able to spirit them off under a veil of secrecy and do whatever they deemed "necessary" to extract information. Not even politicians and commanders of legions wanted to take on the Guild of Sorcerers, and the Guild would certainly back her. Especially with Magister Halathyn's guaranteed support.

Gadrial wasn't foolish enough to think that anyone, even Magister Halathyn himself, could?or even should?shield them from any prying. But there were right and wrong ways of obtaining information from them, and Gadrial was determined that the right way would prevail.

Hundred Thalmayr obviously wasn't made of sufficiently stern stuff to stand against her.

"Very well, Magister Kelbryan," he said in a conciliatory tone. Then he glanced at Jasak again. "The prisoners are yours, Hundred. See to it," he added, his voice heavy with warning as he turned back to Gadrial once more, "that you at least remember whose side you're on."

Gadrial bristled again, but he'd already turned on his heel and walked off, spitting orders as he went. She met Jasak's gaze and found a curious blend of respect, regret, and dark worry in his eyes.

"You'd best pack your things," was all he said. "Salmeer's going to be wanting to leave shortly."

"You think Thalmayr's wrong to stay?" she asked quietly.

"Think?" He snorted. "No, I don't think he's wrong. I know it."

"I agree with you about the need to prevent another violent confrontation, but he's right about the size of the portal," she pointed out unwillingly, hating to sound as if she were siding with Thalmayr about anything. "All of the upstream portals from here are larger. If it does come to more shooting, isn't this the best place to try and hold them?"

"Hundred Thalmayr doesn't have a clue what he's up against," Jasak said softly, his tone flat. "He hasn't seen these people's weapons in action, and he doesn't know one damned thing more than I do about how many of them are out there, how close they are, how quickly they can follow us back to this portal. He won't know, either, until Chief Sword Threbuch gets back here. But instead of pulling people out, he's going to be moving more of them in." He shook his head. "One of my?his?platoons is all the way back in Erthos, over four thousand miles from here. First Platoon's been effectively destroyed, and Five Hundred Klian's battalion's scattered around holding posts across at least three universes. That leaves Thaylar with only two platoons?barely a hundred and twenty more men, even with supports, since they're both understrength. That's not going to be enough to hold against any sort of attack in strength, but it will be big enough to make it impossible for him to disengage and pull out quickly if something too big to handle comes at him."

"And he's not remotely prepared to listen to you," Gadrial worried.

"He's convinced I screwed up, probably because I panicked. He thinks I behaved dishonorably, and that my intention to retreat was an act of cowardice."

"Cowardice! Is he insane? And you did not act dishonorably! Why, that pompous, stupid?!"

"Peace, Magister." He held up one hand, and she subsided, still fuming. "This isn't your fight," he said gently. "And rest assured that that accusation will be raised again.

"Any jackass who makes that accusation will hear the truth from me," she said, eyes slitted, "even if I have to knock them down and stand on their chests while I shout at them!"

"My Lady," Jasak said with a slight smile, "that's a sight I'd relish seeing. But be that as it may, I still have to get them safely back to New Arcana. Pack for the journey, please. I have to speak with Magister Halathyn. Immediately."

"Halathyn," she breathed, her face suddenly pale. "He has to go with us."

"Yes, he has to," Jasak agreed. "And he's a cantankerous, dragon-headed, opinionated old curmudgeon, far too accustomed to getting his own way, who shouldn't be allowed outside the precincts of the Academy without an armed keeper and a leash."

He half-expected her to be insulted, but instead, her lips quirked in a slightly strained smile.

"My goodness, you do know him rather well, don't you?"

"That I do, and he's not going to want to get any further away from this damned portal cluster than he absolutely has to. So, if you'll excuse me?"

He turned away, and it was clear to Gadrial as he stalked toward Halathyn's tent that he cared for that cantankerous, dragon-headed, opinionated old curmudgeon almost as much as she did. And, she thought, biting her lip, he was absolutely right about how hard it was going to be to convince Halathyn to "abandon his post" on the cusp of uncovering the greatest single trans-temporal discovery of all time: not simply a portal, but another entire trans-universal civilization! Could Jasak?or she?possibly come up with an argument potent enough to pull that off?

Fear, cold as a Ransaran winter wind, blew through her heart. She stood for a moment longer, watching Jasak bend to duck under the fly of Halathyn's tent. Then she trudged off toward her own tent, and started to pack.

"There's more trouble brewing," Jathmar said tersely, and Shaylar nodded.

Judging by the raised voices coming from a nearby tent, Jasak and the elderly, dark-skinned Halathyn who'd done such astonishing things weren't exactly in perfect agreement about something. Halathyn sounded reasonable and confident, if a trifle irritated, while Jasak sounded angry and frustrated. The newcomer?the man Jasak and Gadrial had called "Thalmayr"?strode toward the tent, and Jathmar tensed. His maddening inability to understand what anyone said hadn't prevented him from recognizing the fact that Thalmayr represented a serious threat to him and Shaylar … or the fury with which Jasak had confronted the other man over it.

But Thalmayr paused, just outside the tent flap, obviously eavesdropping. At least he didn't intrude and make whatever was going on still worse, but Jathmar would almost have preferred that to the man's nasty grin before he moved on.

Whatever Jasak and Halathyn were arguing about, Jathmar decided he'd better worry about it, if Thalmayr was glad it was taking place. Thalmayr scared him straight down to his socks, and he didn't mind admitting it. Not, at any rate, as much as he hated admitting that he and Shaylar needed Jasak and Gadrial as protection against the other man.

"Gadrial's packing her belongings, too," Shaylar said abruptly. "Look there."

She nodded toward the tent beside Halathyn's, where the slim, not-Uromathian woman was visible through the open flap. She was, indeed, packing, but nobody else was.

"Whatever's going on, they're not evacuating the whole camp," Jathmar muttered. "They must intend to stand their ground at this portal."

"Will Grafin order out a search party?" Shaylar wondered.

"I don't know. That's a military question which means it's also a political one. On the other hand, Darcel won't rest until he locates us?or our bodies. And Darcel can be mighty persuasive."

He smiled crookedly at Shaylar, but his smile disappeared as she shook her head.

"He won't find any bodies, Jath," she said, her voice hollow, and Jathmar felt something prickle along his scalp at her expression.

"What do you mean? Surely they buried the dead!"

"No." She shook her head. "No, they burned them. Cremation, I guess I should call it. All of them. Theirs and ours with?" She swallowed convulsively. "I don't know what it was. It burned fast, and hot. It consumed … everything."

"Those sick, sadistic?" Jathmar began savagely, but she shook her head again, harder.

"No, it wasn't like that!" Her distress was obvious, but she felt carefully for the right words. "They treated our people just like theirs, Jathmar. It was . . . it was like some kind of funeral rite. They couldn't carry the bodies out. And there weren't enough of them left to bury all the dead. So they did the best they could, and they gave our people just as much respect as their own."

Jathmar stared at her, and she managed a tremulous smile. But then her eyes closed once more, and she leaned her forehead against him.

"I know that's what they were doing, what they intended. I read it off Jasak. But seeing it …"

She began to weep yet again, and he held her tight, whispering to her, begging her not to cry.

"No. I need to," she said through her tears. "Barris told me that, after Falsan died in my arms. He told me to go ahead and cry. It was the psychic death shock, he said, and he was right. And then I watched him. Just watched him burn to ashes … "

"Oh, love," he whispered into her hair, rocking her gently, eyes burning.

He started to say something more, then stopped himself and closed his eyes. He hadn't been there when Falsan died, but he knew Barris had given Shaylar the right advice. Now, hard as it was, Jathmar had to let her do the same thing when all he really wanted to do was comfort her until she stopped weeping.

He concentrated on just hugging her, and deliberately sought something else to distract him from his desperate worry over her and his fury at the people who had driven her to this.

He opened his eyes once more and looked up at Gadrial once again. The other woman was almost finished packing, it seemed, and he found himself wondering just who Gadrial was. It was obvious that it was her intervention which had brought the incandescent confrontation between Jasak and Thalmayr to a screeching halt. And, ended it in Jasak's favor, unless Jathmar was very mistaken. The tall, menacing Thalmayr had backed down from her like a rabbit suddenly confronted by a cougar. And she and Halathyn appeared to be the only civilians in the entire camp. So just who were they? And how important was Gadrial?

The confrontation continued to rage in Halathyn's tent. Gadrial stood beside a packed duffel bag, her head cocked to one side, her body language tense and unhappy as she listened to it. Then she obviously came to a decision.

"Oh, my," Shaylar murmured in his ear. She'd almost stopped crying, and she managed a damp smile as she and Jathmar watched Gadrial march toward Halathyn's tent. The other woman's mouth was set in a thin, hard line, and her almond-shaped eyes flashed.

"I don't think I'd like that lady mad at me," Shaylar added, and Jathmar produced a smile of his own.

"I always knew you were a smart woman, love," he replied

Gadrial disappeared into the tent. A moment later her voice joined the fray, pleading at first, then increasingly sharp with anger. It went on for quite a while until, finally, she let out an inarticulate howl and stormed back out again.

A part of Jathmar wanted to be glad. Surely any discord in the enemy's camp had to be a good thing from Sharona's perspective! But then he saw Gadrial's face. Her lovely, honey-toned skin was ashy white, her lips trembled, and tears sparkled on her eyelashes.

Shaylar saw it, too, and rose swiftly, taking Jathmar by surprise.

"Gadrial?" Shaylar lifted a hand toward her, part in question, part in sympathy, and Gadrial's face crumpled. She looked back at Shaylar for a moment, then shook her head and turned away, retreating back into her own tent and letting the flap fall. Shaylar bit her lower lip, then sank back down beside Jathmar.

"I hate that," she whispered wretchedly. "I can't stand seeing her that distressed, especially after the way she's tried to comfort me."

"It's not our affair," Jathmar said gently. Anger sparked in her eyes, but he laid a fingertip across her lips and shook his head.

"It isn't," he said again, gently but firmly. "There's nothing we can do, because there's nothing they'll let us do."

"You're right." A sigh shuddered its way loose from her. "That doesn't make it any easier, though."

"Not for you," he acknowledged. "Me, now, I'm just a bit less forgiving than you are. I think I could stand quite a bit of distress on these people's part!"

"But not on Gadrial's," Shaylar replied.

"Well, no," he admitted, not entirely willingly. "Not on Gadrial's."

She smiled and touched the side of his face, then both of them looked up as Halathyn's tent flap opened again and Jasak emerged. Actually, "emerge" was too pale a way to describe his explosive eruption, or the eloquent gesture he made at the sky. Then he stalked away, heading toward another tent on the opposite side of the encampment.

Halathyn's tent flap stirred again, and the long, frail black man appeared. He called out something, and lifted one hand in a conciliatory gesture, but Jasak refused to listen or even glance back, and the storm in his eyes as he raged past their campfire frightened Jathmar.

Protector or not, Jasak Olderhan obviously wasn't a man any sane individual wanted pissed off at him, Jathmar thought. But he'd already concluded that, watching Jasak and Thalmayr. It wasn't fear of Jasak's temper that tightened Jathmar's arm around Shaylar; it was the iron discipline which held that temper in check. Angry men were dangerous?men who could control and use their anger, instead of being used by it, were deadly.

Jasak was one of the the latter, Jathmar decided, and filed that information carefully away. There were precious few weapons available to them, but knowledge was one, and nothing he learned about these people was a waste of effort. So he watched Jasak stalk into his own tent. Watched Halathyn lower his hand, sigh, and shake his head regretfully. Watched the old man reenter his tent without trying to heal the breach again. And Jathmar watched as Jasak, too, began to throw things into a heavy canvas duffel bag.

So both of their … champions would be going with them, wherever they were going. That was interesting, and at least a little reassuring. As for those who stayed behind …

Jathmar's eyes narrowed once more, filled with bitter emotion. He could only hope that Company-Captain Halifu and Darcel Kinlafia avenged them?with interest. That shocked him, in a way, even now, but it was true.

Jathmar Nargra-Kolmayr had never expected to be brought face-to-face with the sort of carnage which had destroyed his survey team. Yet he had, and he'd discovered that he wanted his dead avenged. He wanted the people who'd killed them repaid in full and ample measure. Part of him was shocked by that, but all the shock in the multiverse couldn't change that fact.

Deep inside, another wounded part of him?a part which might one day heal, however impossible that seemed at the moment?mourned the passing of the man he'd been. The man who would have been horrified by the prospect of yet more slaughter, whoever it was visited upon. But for now, hatred was stronger than horror in his heart, and that was precisely how he wanted it.